Thursday, October 17, 2013

Do
you know the history of the Washington Redskins? As the issue becomes
increasingly contentious — with many claiming the name is racist or
discriminatory and pushing for a change — Glenn Beck tackled the issue head-on
Friday.

“Ninety
percent of Native Americans feel that the name isn’t offensive and shouldn’t be
changed,” Beck remarked, echoing a letter written by the Redskins owner Dan Snyder to fans.
“Students at primarily Native American schools all across America wear the name
with pride, and say now they’re afraid they might lose the name. At Kingston
Oklahoma high school, which is 58 percent Native American, the name ‘Redskins’
has been worn by its students for 104 years. In fact, ‘Redskins’ was a name first
used by Native Americans.”

In
1932, the NFL team moved to the historic Fenway Park and were left under the
leadership of George Preston Marshall. The very next year, Marshall changed the
name to ‘Redskins.’ Why?” Beck continued. “Well that’s a good question for the
president to ask … the name was changed to ‘Redskins’ to honor then-coach Lone
Star Dietz, an American Sioux. So the name actually pays tribute
to a great people.”

Switching
to a deeply sarcastic voice, imitating those who want the name changed, Beck
remarked: “But the people it pays tribute to? Oh, I guess they
just don’t know any better. But Obama does. And Peter King does. And NFL
Commissioner Roger Goodell does. But the majority of the Indians …
don’t have a clue at all. The speech police using political correctness again
to take care of these helpless, hopeless people so they are never harmed again.
It’s for their own good…”

And while we're at it what about the other NFL teams like the
"Cleveland Browns" I think every African American should be outraged
over that one, and how about the Miami Dolphins" and The Seattle
Seahawks" where is PETA when you need them?

I think we should re-name the "Washington Redskins" to
something more closely identified with DC like the "Washington
A-Holes" that's my vote.

Thursday, October 03, 2013

Reaping the rewards of
anti-incumbent sentiment, Republicans made enormous gains in the House of
Representatives in the 2010 elections. While the majority of Americans agree
that the vote was no mandate
for the Republicans' agenda, the new GOP House leadership, empowered by the
most far-right Freshman Class since 1994, is nevertheless looking to impose a
radical agenda. The House GOP's Freshman Class provides an extreme far-right
backbone for the GOP's agenda—many newly-elected members based their campaigns
on propagating anti-government extremism, appealing to bizarre and debunked conspiracy
theories, denigrating gays, immigrants, and Muslims, and pledging to repeal
multiple amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

In this profile of the
"Ten Scariest Republicans Heading to Congress," People For the
American Way looks into newly elected members of the House, from Tea Party
all-star Allen West to anti-gay activist Vicky Hartzler to Bush-crony Tim
Griffin. The "Ten Scariest" include incoming congressmen who have
been clouded by ethics scandals, lied about health care reform, and have ties
to extremist groups. Among the ten, all share rapidly anti-choice and
anti-equality views, enthusiastic support from the Religious Right, and
reactionary economic ideas. Now, as members of the
new GOP majority, the radical Freshman Class will have significant clout to
promote Tea Party economics, lend credibility to dangerous conspiracy theories,
and roll back the rights of women, immigrants, and gay people.

Meet Renee Ellmers: Cracking down on
Monarchy and Mosques

Tea Party activist Renee
Ellmers defeated Democratic Rep. Bob Etheridge by less than 1% of the vote in
North Carolina's second district.

A
self-declared
"product of the tea party," Ellmers ran on an anti-health care and anti-stimulus platform:
she compared President Obama to "Louis XIV, the Sun
King" and asserted that his administration is establishing "a
socialistic form of government." She blasted Democrats for their "imperial ruling class
attitude," and referred to the economic stimulus plan as "massive
government takeovers of the economy."

Ellmers believes that Obama puts the country at risk because he
supposedly refuses "to recognize – and tell the American people – [that]
he understands radical Islamic terrorism does exist." She also launched an
ugly and bigoted campaign ad equating all Muslims with the 9/11 terrorists, []
arguing that the planned Islamic Community Center in Lower Manhattan is a
"victory mosque" and a symbol of Muslim conquest:

Narrator: "After the
Muslims conquered Jerusalem, and Cordoba and Constantinople, they built victory
mosques. And now, they want to build a mosque near Ground Zero. Where does Bob
Etheridge stand? He won't say, won't speak out, won't take a stand."

Ellmers: "The
terrorists haven't won, and we should tell them in plain English, ‘No, there
will never be a mosque at Ground Zero.'"

In an interview with Anderson Cooper, she suggested that Obama's
foreign policy subtly shows support for terrorists by using foreign aid to
build mosques. Cooper, however, pointed out that she was referring to a program
started by President Bush that helps rebuild houses of worships including
churches and temples. When Cooper asked if the Roman Catholic Church built a
"victory church" in Rome over a Pagan temple, she took umbrage and
asked Cooper if he was "anti-religion" or "anti-Christian."
Cooper replied: "That's like the lowest response I have ever heard from a
candidate, I have got to tell you."

Defending her ad to
right-wing radio talk show host Tammy Bruce, she said ,"It's time for elected officials to go to
Washington who are ready to stand up for America."

Ellmers says she decided to run for Congress after she started
campaigning against health care reform with Americans for Prosperity, a corporate front group tied to the Koch brothers. She told G. Gordon Liddy that the health care reform bill was
"put in place simply to control our lives," and maintained that "physicians are not going to be able to
continue to practice" because of the reform law, which she said "is
just a monster."

According to Ellmers,
insurance companies should be able to deny individuals coverage for
pre-existing conditions. "Private insurance companies [should] decide how
they're going to handle the pre-existing conditions situation," she said.
Ellmers also attacked a requirement that insurance companies to cover maternity
care and other health issues, calling such coverage "very costly."

In a debate, Ellmers came out against emergency funding to protect
the jobs of teachers, and suggested that diverting public funds towards private
school vouchers through "school choice" would help prevent job losses
among public school teachers.

She said that her plan to reduce the debt would be to cut taxes
and end foreign aid. As a proponent of the "FairTax" she believes that the
progressive income tax should be scrapped and replaced with a regressive
national sales tax.

An avowed opponent of
immigrant rights, Ellmers claimed that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer showed "the kind of
leadership we have not seen in a long time" when she signed SB 1070, and suggested that Congress vote to defund the Department of
Justice over their lawsuit against the draconian immigration law.

A Tea Party activist who
smears minority groups for political gain and has no real plan to cut the
deficit or save jobs, Renee Ellmers appears to exemplify many of the ugliest
qualities of the Tea Party movement.

Meet Tom Marino: Plagued by Corruption
Charges

In 2007, Tom Marino
resigned from his position as U.S. Attorney in Pennsylvania after a corruption
scandal clouded his career and raised questions about his honesty. In 2005,
Marino had used his official title as U.S. Attorney to provide a reference to his "close friend," convicted
felon Louis DeNaples, who was trying to win the state gaming commission's
approval to open slot machines at a resort he owned. When Marino's office began
an investigation into DeNaples for lying about his ties to organized crime, Marino's assistants uncovered the
reference and notified the Justice Department, which transferred the investigation out of Marino's office. But
questions about Marino's ties to DeNaples remained.

Defending his actions,
Marino said on a local radio show that the Department of Justice gave him
permission to be a reference for DeNaples. But
the Justice Department says
there is "no record of Marino having received the permission" to serve as
a reference for DeNaples and that Marino never informed the General Counsel office. Although Marino
stands by his claim that he received written permission, he failed to produce
any letter from the Department.

When the Justice
Department launched an investigation into Marino's actions, he resigned and promptly took a $250,000-a-year job as "DeNaples' in-house lawyer."
Marino later under-reported his income on his financial disclosure forms,
reporting that he only received $25,000 from DeNaples. Even Zack Oldham of the
conservative blog RedState said of Marino's actions: "The reality is just as bad
as–if not worse than–the optics of this scandal."

The DeNaples affair
wasn't even the first time Marino had run into corruption accusations. When
Marino was District Attorney in Lycoming County, he tried to get a friend out
of a drug charge by going behind the back of the county judge who had refused
to toss out his friend's conviction. According to the Luzeme County Citizens Voice, Marino
"approached another judge and won the expungement, but the plan backfired
when the second judge learned of the first judge's involvement in the
case."

Marino continued to
struggle with the truth in his campaign for Congress. He criticized his
opponent, Rep. Chris Carney, for leaving Washington as an anti-abortion rights
bill was being circulated during the health care reform debate. Carney was not in Washington at the time because his wife was undergoing
surgery for breast cancer.

He later alleged that Carney "has no problem spending taxpayers'
money for abortions" and that Pennsylvania women were receiving taxpayer-subsidized
abortions under the new health care law, even though nonpartisan fact-checkers
have confirmed, repeatedly, that the law prohibits taxpayer funding for abortion.

Marino also berated his
opponent for refusing to take questions from the press on political matters
after Carney, a Navy Reservist, was called for active duty and was barred by law from
making "statements to or answer questions from the news media regarding
political issues or regarding government policies."

On the issue of
immigration, Marino opposes a
pathway for citizenship for illegal immigrants, and touts his endorsement from Americans for Legal Immigration [],
which has been called a "nativist extremist organization" by the
Southern Poverty Law Center. In his Americans for Legal Immigration [] survey,
Marino says he strongly favors Arizona's severe SB 1070 law, would refuse to
support comprehensive immigration reform, and would consider impeaching the
president over immigration policy.

Marino said he would vote against extending unemployment benefits, maintaining that
some of the people on unemployment simply don't "want to go get work
because they are being paid to stay home." He said that non-senior
citizens should face cuts in Social Security benefits if not the elimination of
the program altogether, saying, "My generation and probably the generation that
follows me, we are going to have to step up to the plate and say, ‘We are not
going to get Social Security.'" The 60 Plus Association, a front group for the health care and pharmaceutical industries
that supports privatizing Social Security, aired TV ads
on Marino's behalf.

In a radio interview in
August, Marino reportedly suggested eliminating the IRS and the Departments
of Education and Energy and replacing them with new agencies, saying,
"There's got to be a total revolution there."

Despite the ethical cloud
surrounding Marino, his hard-line conservative views and support from the
Radical Right helped him win election to Congress.

Meet Tim Walberg: A Birther Goes to
Washington

Tim Walberg, who is
returning to the House next year after representing Michigan's 7th district for
one term from 2007-2009, brags that he "was a Tea Partier before there was
a Tea Party." Indeed, Walberg enthusiastically embraces the most extreme
aspects of the Tea Party—from corporate pandering and vowing to cut social
safety-net programs to far-right views on social issues and a predilection for
conspiracy theories.

Walberg is perhaps most
famous for his unabashed embrace of "birther" theories. Asked by a
radio show caller if he thinks President Obama is an American citizen or a
Muslim, Walberg responded:

"You know, I don't
know, I really don't know. [] We don't have enough information about this
President. He was never given a job interview that was complete.

"But that's not the
issue now. [] He is President. Right now, we need to make sure that he doesn't
remain as President. Whether he's American, a Muslim, a Christian, you name
it."

While other candidates
have tried to tiptoe away from their own birther claims, Walberg later doubled down, saying that he would "take [Obama] at his
word that he's an American citizen"…and then suggested that Congress
impeach Obama in order to obtain a copy of his birth certificate.

But birtherism isn't the
only right-wing conspiracy theory that Walberg backs. He has repeated the bizarre—and completely debunked—theory that the Chinese are drilling for oil off the
coast of Florida. And he continues to repeat discredited ideas about the
origins of the Iraq war. He said
that Saddam Hussein funded the Al Qaeda terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks, and
insisted in a debate last month that Iraq
"absolutely" had weapons of mass destruction before the American
invasion—something that even George W. Bush now admits is not true.

Walberg backs an extreme
pro-corporate economic agenda. When Walberg first won election in 2006, the
ultra-conservative Club For Growth counted his victory as its own, bragging that its PAC "scored its first-ever knock-out
of an incumbent" when Walberg defeat a moderate incumbent in the
Republican primary. The Club for Grouth had poured millions of dollars into Walberg's 2006 campaign,
spending $1 million in the primary, and then producing vicious attack adds
against his Democratic opponent in the general election. This year, American Future Fund, an especially shadowy group with ties to
Big Agriculture, spent over $500,000 to run an ad
attacking Walberg's opponent with false claims about health care reform and
clean energy legislation.

And, it seems, Walberg's
big business backers will get what they paid for. The League of Conservation
Voters named him to their 2010 Dirty Dozen, the second time he had
made that list. During his one previous term in Congress, LCV said,
"Walberg opposed every major clean energy reform…earning a 0% LCV
score." LCV continued, "During his two years in office, he was on the
wrong side of conservation and clean energy on 32 out of 33 votes. He even
voted against the No Child Left Inside Act, designed to help educate children
about the natural environment." Indeed, no clean energy effort is too
small to earn Walberg's disdain: on the campaign trail, he slammed Michigan
Governor Jennifer Granholm for riding her bicycle to work.

Walberg wants to
dramatically cut social safety net programs, and directs much of his scorn on
Social Security. He's advocated for privatizing the program, and agreed with a supporter at a Tea Party event who said Social
Security is unconstitutional and "a Ponzi scheme." In 2006, he called Social Security "socialism at its finest,"
adding, "That's defined as socialism when the government is required to
take care of us all."

Walberg's Religious Right
credentials are also stellar. He opposes
abortion rights, including in cases of rape or incest. As a member of the
House, he cosponsored two bills that, according to NARAL, "would end all legal
abortion, most common forms of birth control, stem cell research, and in
vitro fertilization".
He voted against a bill that would have provided for stem cell
research.

In 2008, Walberg was the
only member of the House education committee to vote "no" on
extending funding for the Head Start program. He objected to a provision in the bill that prohibited Head Start
preschools from discriminating based on religion, warning that a Christian
parochial school might have to hire a Muslim or "a Wiccan from a coven in
Ann Arbor."

In the House, Walberg
voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act
and against expanding hate crimes
legislation to include gender identity and sexual orientation, and against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. He also
opposed equal pay legislation and the 2008 Paycheck Fairness Act.

Meet Vicky Hartzler: Missouri's Anti-Gay
Zealot

Although Ike Skelton, the
long-time representative in Missouri's fourth congressional district, was far
from a supporter of LGBT equality, Vicky Hartzler, the Republican who defeated
him in this year's election, has based her political career on supporting
discrimination against gays and lesbians.

A former state
legislator, she was the spokeswoman and public face of the Coalition to Protect
Marriage in Missouri, which successfully amended the state Constitution to
include a ban same-sex marriage (which was already banned by statute) in 2004.
The New York Timeswrites that her group used "church functions, yard signs
and a ‘marriage chain' of rallies across the state," and Hartzler
"said she hoped that the outcome would send a loud message to the rest of
the country: ‘Here in the heartland we have a heart for families, and this is
how deeply we feel about marriage.'"

Mother
Jonesposited that Hartzler might be the "most anti-gay
candidate in America"-- she believes that repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell
will "put us at risk," maintains that sexual orientation is a choice
and therefore gay people aren't entitled to civil rights, and dubbed hate
crimes legislation one of the "the extreme agenda items of the gay
movement."

Paul Guequierre of the
Human Rights Campaign told Mother Jones that while "Ike
Skelton has not been a friend of the LGBT community," unlike Hartzler,
"he does not wake up in the morning thinking about what he can do to harm
the LGBT community."

A staunch anti-choice
activist, Hartzler supported legislation which "would have allowed for
prosecutors to charge women who obtained late-term abortions with murder"
and "also have permitted second-degree murder charges to be filed against
doctors who performed such procedures." She was also the chief sponsor of
a bill that would pressure women seeking an abortion to view
their sonograms. Throughout her career in the State House, she consistently
received perfect ratings from the right-wing Missouri Family
Network.

In a profile by
the American Family
Association, Hartzler said that she found inspiration from God to
run for public office at the age of nine, and her book maintains that
"Christians must become more active in politics if they are to have the
impact God calls them to have." Hartzler said that her book provides
Christian candidates with "the tools and inspiration they need to bring
God's light in a darkening world."

According to one sympathetic
review in a local newspaper, Hartzler's book "praises Absalom —
a rebellious son of King David, God's anointed leader for Israel and according
to Christian theology an early example of divinely ordained rule prefiguring
that of Jesus Christ — as being the ‘first politician' and an example for
modern political leaders. In Hartzler's words, ‘Absalom won over the hearts of
the people of Israel using time-tested campaign strategies. We, too, can
campaign successfully following these same guidelines.'"

A climate change denier,
Hartzler asserted that she does not believe in climate change since she
read "some articles that [said] it's actually decreasing, that we have
climates getting colder…and certainly, I don't believe that if there is a
climate change that man has a very significant role in that."

Hartzler ran an ugly anti-immigrant ad against Ike Skelton, in which she claimed
that by voting to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program Skelton
supported "welfare benefits" for "illegal immigrants," and
criticized him for opposing a measure that would prohibit illegal immigrants
from attending public schools as "giving illegal immigrants free
education."

She appealed to Tea
Partiers by slamming government spending, as she blasted Congress's
spending plans and said that "we just want the government to leave us
alone here in Missouri's 4th." However, according to the Kansas City Star,
Hartzler's "farm has received $774,325 in federal
subsidies from 1995 to 2009." She defended the government farm subsidies
as a "national defense issue," and claimed that she would not
support cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or defense.

In an editorial board
interview, she couldn't name any programs she would cut funding to other than
"the Lady Bird Highway Beautification projects. She indicated that garden
clubs could do some of this work along the highways, saving public funds."

However, Hartzler does
appear to support spending money to expand the role of the Navy in Missouri--
she argued that under Skelton's watch the landlocked state has
"the smallest Navy here that we have had since the early 1960s."

Hartzler blended her Tea
Party lip service and Religious Right advocacy to topple one of the most
powerful members of the House, and will now bring her years of experience in
anti-equality and anti-choice activism to become a prominent voice of the Far
Right in the GOP-led House.

Meet Lou Barletta: America's Anti-Immigrant
Mayor Heads to Congress

Those disappointed to see
anti-immigrant zealot Tom Tancredo off the national political stage will find a
similar one-issue firebrand in Pennsylvania Congressman-Elect Lou Barletta.

Barletta rose to national
prominence as the mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, a small working class city
that in 2006 enacted some of the most draconian anti-immigrant measures in the
country. Hazleton's law put tough penalties on individuals and businesses who
knowingly or unknowingly did business with undocumented immigrants—it revoked
for five years the business license of any business caught employing an
undocumented immigrant, and slapped landlords caught renting to undocumented
immigrants with a $1,000-a-day fine. The law also declared English the official
language of Hazleton, and prohibited city officials from translating documents
without permission.

When the law passed,
Barletta told the Washington Post, "I will get rid of the illegal
people. It's this simple: They must leave." On the day the
city passed the measure, Barletta wore a bulletproof vest to illustrate his
concern over crimes he said were being committed by undocumented immigrants. Statistics,
however, showed that undocumented immigrants were hardly responsible for a crime
wave in Hazelton: the city's data showed that of 8,575 felonies committed in
the city between 2000 and 2007, 20 had been linked to undocumented immigrants.
Later, forced to admit that he had no proof of an illegal immigrant-caused
crime wave, or proof that illegal immigrants were crowding Hazleton's schools
and hospitals, or even any idea how many illegal immigrants were in Hazelton,
Barletta responded,
"The people in my city don't need numbers."

After the law took
effect, businesses catering to Latino residents that had revitalized Hazleton's
downtown area saw a sharp drop in business, and Latino residents reported
increased hostility from white residents.

A federal judge struck
down Barletta's law in 2007, writing,
"The genius of our Constitution is that it provides rights even to those
who evoke the least sympathy from the general public. Hazleton, in its zeal to
control the presence of a group deemed undesirable, violated the rights of such
people, as well as others within the community." An appeals court this
year upheld the ruling.

Although Barletta claimed
to be defending "the legal taxpayer of any race," he admitted that he
found
inspiration for the law from the website of self-described
"proud nationalist" Jim Turner, who pushed a similar measure in San
Bernardino, California to prevent the state from becoming, as he put it, a
"Third World
Cesspool."

As copy-cat laws started
to pop up in towns around the country, Barletta became a hero to anti-immigrant
and nativist groups. When he ran for Congress in 2008, Barletta's campaign received $10,920 from the Minuteman PAC, the political
spending arm of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a vigilante border-patrol
group that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls "nativist extremist." It was the largest
donation the Minuteman PAC made to a candidate that year.

In 2009, Barletta drew
fire for speaking at a conference hosted by The American Cause, a group that
had earlier that year released a report urging the Republican Party to not "pander to
pro-amnesty Hispanics and swing voters," and instead to put anti-immigrant
policies at the forefront of the party's strategy. The report was authored by
several anti-immigrant advocates, many who had clear records of dabbling in
white supremacy. The executive director of the group, and main author of the report,
had even been charged with a hate crime against an African American woman.
The immigrants' rights group America's Voice described the 2009 conference as "a forum for white
nationalists to forge ties with ‘mainstream' media commentators and
conservative leaders."

Although Barletta frames
most of his politics through the lens of illegal immigration, he has also
embraced Tea Party talking points on social issues, the environment, and the
scope of government. In a candidates' debate, he said his first action as a member of Congress would be to
vote to repeal health care reform. He says
the Affordable Care Act brought about "nationalized health care" and
said it would put "life-affecting health decisions in the hands of
bureaucrats," and echoed the false claim raised by many in the Tea Party that health care
reform "will take $500 billion out of Medicare." He told a forum in Pocono, "We're afraid of our government.
We're afraid of what our government is going to do" and claimed
on his campaign website that President Obama and Democrats in Congress are
"spending our country into servitude."

In terms of government
spending, Barletta took particular issue with the comparatively miniscule $1.1
million that was spent to send members of Congress and their staffers to last
year's climate summit in Copenhagen. He claims to be a climate change skeptic, saying, "You know
there's arguments on both sides. I'm not convinced that there's scientific
evidence that proves that. I believe there's some that can also argue the
opposite."

When Obama created a
panel to distribute recovery funds from BP's $20 billion escrow account after
the Gulf oil spill, Barletta said, "It's exactly what the people of the Gulf don't
need – more bureaucracy."

Barletta's record as
mayor of Hazleton doesn't speak well, however, for his future as a fiscal
problem solver: his budget for Hazleton last year hikes taxes and fees, and called
for laying off government workers—including a number of police officers. As
Barletta leaves office, Hazleton has the highest rate of unemployment in Pennsylvania. Despite raising
taxes as Mayor of Hazleton, Barletta has signed Americans for Tax Reform's pledge to never raise taxes
in Washington.

Barletta opposes marriage equality, Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal, and
abortion rights. He has also embraced right-wing conspiracy theories about
government-run "death panels" and the imminent risk of human cloning,
stating
on his website, "I will oppose the efforts of some to increase or expand
the protection or establishment of legal euthanasia, abortion, and human
cloning. As Congress begins to tackle the issues of Medicare and health care
reform, I will never support a program that results in rationing of life-saving
procedures to those covered under those programs."

In his predictably
hostile response to the planned Islamic community center in lower
Manhattan, he advanced the popular right-wing pseudo-historical theory of
Muslim "victory mosques."

While Barletta, it seems,
will be a reliable vote for the Republican Party's far-right wing, he's already
emerging as a leader on anti-immigrant zealotry. Two days after the election,
he went on Fox News to accuse
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of attempting to buy Hispanic votes by
introducing the widely popular DREAM Act, which provides a path to citizenship
for those who entered the country illegally as children and who go on to
college or military service.

Meet Tim Griffin: Karl Rove's Man in
Congress

Running for an open
Democratic seat, Tim Griffin defeated progressive champion Joyce Elliott to win the election to represent Arkansas's
second district.

Tim Griffin worked on the
two George W. Bush presidential campaigns and was the RNC's chief opposition
researcher during John McCain's 2008 campaign . In 2000, he said of his opposition research department: "We think of
ourselves as the creators of the ammunition in a war…. We make the
bullets." Conservative columnist Robert Novak called Griffin "a protégé of Karl Rove, who is a leading
practitioner of opposition research — the digging up of derogatory information
about political opponents."

Griffin again came into
controversy when President Bush appointed him U.S. Attorney as part of his
ongoing efforts to politicize the Department of Justice. "In December
2006, U.S. Attorney Bud Cummings was fired from his district in Northeast
Arkansas and replaced with Tim Griffin," writes investigative journalist
Shannyn Moore. In hiring Griffin and other U.S. Attorneys, the Bush
Administration used a little known provision of the USA Patriot Act to avoid
confirmation hearings and votes by the U.S. Senate. Deputy Attorney General
Paul McNaulty later testified that "Cummings was fired to make a place for
Griffin at the urging of Karl Rove and Harriet Miers," the former White House Counsel.
Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's Chief of Staff, wrote in an
email that "getting him appointed was important to Harriet,
Karl, etc."

Paul Charlton, who was
also ousted in the Bush Administration's purge of U.S. Attorneys, said that Griffin "spread the rumors around the White
House that Bud Cummings was not a good U.S. Attorney" in order to get him
fired. Another U.S. Attorney who was pushed out during the purge, David
Iglesias, maintains that
Tim Griffin "never should have been U.S. Attorney, he was fundamentally
unqualified."

When defending Griffin's
nomination, the Bush Administration used misleading
talking points that significantly exaggerated his experience as a
prosecutor.

Griffin continued his
deeply political work while serving as a U.S. Attorney, but was forced to
resign in 2007 when he was caught in a "vote caging" operation to
prevent minorities from voting. The BBC uncovered emails sent by Griffin during the 2004 campaign
which included ‘caging lists' to bar typically marginalized groups voting, and
Griffin's "caging lists were heavily weighted with minority voters
including homeless individuals, students and soldiers sent overseas."

Iglesias said that
Griffin's management of the vote caging maneuvers represented
"reprehensible conduct and it may be illegal." As a result of his
disreputable background, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
(CREW) rated him one of the "most corrupt" candidates for Congress.

Throughout his
congressional campaign, Griffin closely followed the Karl Rove-playbook of
appealing to both corporate interests and the Religious Right. Griffin wants to
repeal health care reform and once supported the elimination of corporate taxes in favor of a
regressive national sales tax. At a candidate forum, he even went out of his way to laud the state's relatively low wages
for workers and anti-union laws.

An opponent of equal
rights and a woman's right to choose, Griffin supports a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, believes that employers should be allowed to fire their employees
due to their sexual orientation, and has pledged to protect the discriminatory Defense Of Marriage Act
(DOMA). The fervently anti-choice group Americans United for Life Action ran ads
boosting Griffin and criticizing his opponent, saying that she does not care
about "the life of an innocent child."

After a long career of
dirty tricks, corporate astro-turfing, and Rovian politics, Griffin is a darling
of the Republican leadership and set to become a star member of the GOP's
freshman class.

In one of the Tea Party's
biggest victories, Florida's Allen West defeated incumbent Democrat Ron Klein in a rematch of their
2008 race. West, an Army veteran, became a YouTube
sensation by criticizing "this tyrannical government" and
crying out: "if you're here to stand up to get your musket, to fix your
bayonet, and to charge into the ranks, you are my brother and sister in this
fight." He said that the country was engaging in "class warfare"
between "a producing class and an entitlement class," which is
composed of Obama supporters.

While serving in Iraq, he
was forced out of the Army for his violent handling of an investigation of a
police officer. During the interrogation, West dragged
"him outside, pushed his head into the sand, and fired a gun next to his
face to get him to sing." According to West: "It wasn't torture.
Seeing Rosie O'Donnell naked would be torture."

West also has close ties
to the Outlaws motorcycle gang, which an NBC News report found had criminal ties and a website that
features a page honoring members who are in prison, extolling "members
convicted of violent crimes, including murder." In a letter, West wrote: "Please, no more references to ‘criminal'
because I can tell you, they have the utmost respect for me and that which I
seek to achieve. I was never more amazed at how members of the Outlaws guarded
me during a one hour cell phone radio interview."

West encouraged his supporters to use violence in suppressing the
votes of opponents, saying, "You've got to make the fellow scared to come
out of his house."

He maintains that it is "unfortunate" that gays and
lesbians are serving in the military, and compared homosexuality to adultery.
He is also radically anti-choice. On abortion rights, he has said, "I
believe all future discussion on this issue should move us toward the
elimination of abortion except in the most extraordinary of
circumstances," and accused pro-choice groups of "promot[ing]
abortion as a means of birth control."

West wants to eliminate the
progressive tax system, supports tax cuts for the rich, and calls Wall Street reform a
"sham." He's advocated for eliminating the Departments of Energy and
Education.

A Republican partisan, West said: "I hate big-tent. I hate inclusiveness. And I
hate outreach." West uses extreme rhetoric against Democrats and liberals.
He said that
liberals resented the fact that he saved the lives of American soldiers. On the
anti-Islam blog Atlas Shrugs, he wrote that progressives "detest anyone who has the
courage of conviction and love of America, something which they find
unconscionable." In the same post, he wrote, "Liberals seek to
destroy any institution of intrinsic value: God, country, family, honor, valor,
courage, VIRTUE... Why? Because if such things exist, then they must be
defended, which brings them back to their fear of action." He has also claimed that Democratic combat veterans Joe Sestak and Patrick
Murphy "hate the military."

West says that Obama does not "care for this country" and
wants to "make it like some type of third world socialist cesspool,"
and is not an American since he grew up in Indonesia and "never played
little league baseball." He compared Obama and his "tyrannical government" to
the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany, and dubbed the Obama Administration a "thugocracy."

Militantly anti-Muslim,
West consistently criticizes Arabs and Muslims. He told Atlas Shrugs' Pamela Geller that the Bible is evidence
the Arabs are a "wild" people: "the Angel of the Lord said to
[Hagar]: ‘Behold you are with child, and you shall bear a son, you shall call
his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a
wild man; His hand shall be against everyman, and every man's hand against him.
And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.' Ishmael of course
became the beginning of the Arab people....and God's word is immutable
truth."

He has suggested that there are "thirty-six training camps"
run by terrorists inside the US, and that soldiers are becoming "brainwashed" by terrorists
who "infiltrated the military." According to West, Islam is "not a religion" but a "theo-political
belief system and construct" that must be destroyed.

Meet Alan Nunnelee: Mississippi's Newest
Member of Congress is on a "Crusade to Save America"

Mississippi Democrat
Travis Childers was a prime target for the GOP the moment he took office after
a special election in May, 2008 in a seat that Republicans had held for 14 years. One of the most conservative Democrats in the House,
Childers opposed health care reform and abortion rights, supported gun rights,
and voted with his party less often than almost any other House member.

But despite his conservative
bona fides, Childers couldn't hold onto his seat against the challenge of
far-right state senator Alan Nunnelee. Nunnelee describes
himself as on a "crusade to save America." Although Childers voted
against almost all of the Democrats' major pieces of legislation, Nunnelee
criticized him for not being conservative enough. In a speech before his
primary victory, Nunnelee declared that Democratic policies are "more
dangerous" than Pearl Harbor or 9/11: "What I see in Washington over
the last 16 months is a more dangerous attack because it's an attack on our
freedom that's coming from the inside."

In an interview with
a local Tea Party group, Nunnelee questioned whether the Obama Administration
has a national security policy, saying "the administration has been so
preoccupied with their domestic agenda that they have ignored our national
defense."

In a speech
before the Byhalia Chamber of Commerce in August, Nunnelee dipped his toes in
conspiracy theory, announcing that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was planning to
investigate American citizens who oppose the so-called "Ground Zero
Mosque": "Just yesterday, the Speaker of the House said that those
people that were opposed to building a mosque at the site of Ground Zero need
to be investigated. So if you had a conversation at work, if you picked up your
cell phone and called your brother in law, if you sent an email to your
children, and you expressed concern about that, you need to watch out, because
the Speaker of the House thinks you should be investigated."

A state senator since
1994, Nunnelee has been a leader in far-right initiatives including hard-line
anti-choice laws, opposition to gay rights, reducing environmental oversight,
and making it more difficult to obtain Medicaid.

Nunnelee was at the
forefront of Mississippi's efforts to all but eliminate abortion services in
the state. He was instrumental in
the effort to pass Mississippi's ban on late term abortion and led the effort
to create a law directly challenging Roe v. Wade, which he called
"the worst kind of law." Nunnelee's law set up tough parental consent requirements and provided
that, in the event that Roe v. Wade was overturned, doctors
performing abortions could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. Nunnelee
also wrote an "informed consent" law requiring women to
look at a picture book of fetal development before agreeing to an abortion
procedure. He worked with anti-choice groups to write a law requiring abortion clinics in Mississippi to meet
"ambulatory surgical facility" standards, intended to put abortion
clinics out of business by requiring them to follow onerous and precise
standards including having hallways over six feet wide and "an attractive
setting." This year, Nunnelee sponsored a bill requiring Mississippi to "opt-out"
of using federal health care funds for abortion—although the state already has
such a ban and the federal health care bill involves no such funding. He called
it the "Federal Abortion-Mandate Opt-Out Act."

There is now only one
abortion clinic in Mississippi.

On the issue of marriage,
Nunnelee brags
of having pushed Mississippi's anti-marriage equality constitutional amendment,
and of working to prevent gay couples in the state from adopting children,
saying: "I am proud to have pushed the statutory language prohibiting same
sex couples from adopting as well as the Constitutional Amendment prohibiting
same sex marriage in Mississippi." He also voted
to allow an option for covenant marriage, a marriage agreement under which it
is very difficult to get a divorce.

Nunnelee was behind the successful push to make the DMV print "Choose
Life" license plates, with the proceeds going to benefit anti-choice groups,
and also boasts that he "led the efforts to place our national
motto, In God we Trust, on the classroom wall of every school classroom in the
state."

Nunnelee also boasts of
his roll in a 2004 plan
that cut 65,000 Mississippians from the state's Medicaid rolls. His suggestion
for those who lost coverage was to call drug companies to find out about free
or reduced price prescriptions. The Mississippi Human Services Coalition gave
him a 0 percent ranking for his abysmal voting record.

He has consistently voted
for Voter ID laws, which often work to prevent low-income people from voting.
He has said he supports Arizona's draconian anti-immigrant law, saying, "unless
the federal government is willing to enforce existing laws, states must protect
themselves as Arizona has." In a GOP candidates' debate, he stated,
"I would be absolutely opposed to granting any kind of amnesty to any man
or woman who is in this country illegally," and also supports ending the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright
citizenship.

Finally, after he was
elected, Nunnelee went on the radio with notorious bigot Bryan Fischer to discuss the GOP's policies in
the new Congress, repeatedly agreeing that health care reform should be
repealed at all costs, even if it takes a government shut-down.

Meet Raul Labrador: Bryan Fischer's
Favorite Tea Partier

In the Republican primary
to see who would face off against Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick, Raul Labrador
ran to the right of his very conservative opponent, who was endorsed by Sarah Palin and the NRCC. Labrador rallied support from Religious Right and Tea Party groups in order to upset Republican Vaughn Ward,
whose campaign imploded, and he went on to defeat Rep. Minnick.

Labrador made his
right-wing views clear when he announced his campaign in an email "to a former Idaho
blogger known for his extreme conservative views." He supports withdrawing the
US from the United Nations, returning to
the Gold Standard, and eliminating the Department of Education. Labrador even wants
to repeal the 17th Amendment and end the right of voters to
elect their Senators, bizarrely saying that
it is "the constitutional position to take" and the only way to make
sure "that U.S. Senators are actually beholden to the people."

In the State House,
Labrador said he will work "tirelessly to defund and repeal
Obamacare" and spearheaded the passage of a bill which compels the
Attorney General to challenge the health care reform law in federal court and
bars the government from mandating coverage. When speaking to radio talk show
host Laura Ingraham, Labrador maintained that the law was "historic, but remember,
Benedict Arnold was also historic, he betrayed our nation. And I think the
Democratic Party betrayed our nation yesterday as well."

An anti-government
zealot, he backed bills which seek to reaffirm Idaho's sovereignty from
the federal government, to limit "Congress' power under the commerce
clause," and to stop the federal government from enforcing gun laws.

He won support from the
Religious Right community and the American Family Association's director of
public policy and talk show host Bryan Fischer,
who compared gays to terrorists and believes that Muslims should
be prohibited from
building mosques in the U.S., called Labrador his "good friend"
and the two hosted Tea Party rallies together. Labrador voted to make the federal government "provide for the presence
of God in the public domain," supports the law banning openly gay and lesbian soldiers from
serving in the military, and opposes same-sex
marriage rights.

A proponent of corporate
interests, Labrador wants to scrap the
progressive income tax in favor of a national sales tax, supports the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens
United,
and signed Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge. Even though he
opposes the economic stimulus, as a state representative he repeatedly voted in favor of spending federal money provided
by the stimulus. On immigration, Arizona's notorious Sheriff
Joe Arpaio endorsed Labrador, who has said that illegal immigrants are "going to have to
self-deport."

Raul Labrador's fanatical
mission to rewrite the Constitution and dismantle the federal government has
generated massive support from the Tea Party, and Religious Right figures like
Bryan Fischer and Peggy Nance have given Labrador their blessing as a result of
his rigid anti-choice and anti-equality views. [] Labrador is now set to bring
his extremist views and right-wing platform from the Idaho State House to the
U.S. Congress.

Meet Sandy Adams: Conspiracy-Theorist,
Religious Extremist

After serving four terms
in the Florida State House, Sandy Adams ran for U.S. Congress and handily
defeated freshman congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas. She built up a far-right voting
record as a state representative, and she campaigned as the most
conservative candidate in the competitive Republican primary.

As a legislator and
candidate Sandy Adams has embraced the agenda of the Religious Right. Adams
voted to enact burdensome waiting periods and tougher parental notice laws
for young women seeking abortions, and voted in favor of forcing women to have ultrasound tests before terminating a pregnancy, which the
governor ultimately vetoed because it placed "an inappropriate burden on
women seeking to terminate a pregnancy." During the GOP primary she was
endorsed by militantly anti-choice groups including the Republican National Coalition for Life and the American
Conservative Union. Moreover, she is on record opposing stem-cell
research and boasts that she "fought against this type of research
funding in the Florida House of Representatives."

She is also an avowed
opponent of teaching evolution, and voted in favor of a bill that calls on teachers to "teach theories that contradict the
theory of evolution." Adams herself does not believe evolution and says
that Christians should reject evolution in favor of "the biblical terms of how we came
about." When asked "by a caller in a telephone town hall meeting
whether she believed in evolution…Adams replied, ‘I'm Christian. What else do
you want to know?'" Adams also supports Florida's
unsuccessful private school vouchers program and wants the Ten Commandments
to be displayed in public schools.

Like Sharron Angle, Sandy
Adams floats the
baseless conspiracy theory that Islamic, or Sharia, law is
thriving in Muslim communities in Michigan and in danger of spreading
throughout Michigan and the United States:

"The Muslim
extremist project is to create pockets and to grow their Muslim extreme
philosophies, and if you look at some of our towns within our own borders, like
Michigan, Michigan has cities that have a lot of Muslim influence and even so
much as I would say some extremist Muslim influence because they are trying to
operate under Sharia law, not American law. And I believe that we need to
continue to operate under our Constitutional laws and the laws of our country
and our state and we should not be under any other form of the law."

Sarah Palin endorsed Sandy
Adams, and Adams claims that she "can't wait to join the Tea Party
Caucus" and said that "I believe what Michele Bachmann is doing is
the right thing to do and I will be part of that Caucus, I can assure you of
that."

She has embraced
anti-government extremism, and wants to radically alter the Constitution by repealing the 16th and 17th Amendments, which would eliminate
the progressive income tax and the right of voters to elect their U.S.
Senators, respectively. Adams believes that instead of voters, state
legislators like herself should pick the state's Senators. Adams also wants to abolish the
Department of Education, said that the Departments of Energy and Interior Departments
should be "completely dismantled" because they are "not allowed
by our Constitution," and strongly
opposes Wall Street Reform. She wouldn't "vouch for the
constitutionality of the federal Clean Water and Clean Air acts without reading
them," writes the Orlando Sentinel, "yet she's all for
big government when it comes to NASA," which is based in her district.

Furthermore, she backs Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's "Roadmap for
America," which calls for the privatization of Social Security and Medicare. According to Florida Today, Adams
"wants to cut government spending, but couldn't cite one area to cut;
wants to repeal health care reform, but offered no alternative; and is willing
to look at privatizing Medicare, something that should alarm seniors."
Adams was also the chief sponsor of a state constitutional amendment that would stop Florida from
cooperating with the recently passed health care reform law by barring
mandatory insurance coverage.

Adams is also ardently
opposed to immigrant rights and touts the endorsement of Americans for Legal Immigration,
which has been classified as a "nativist extremist organization" by
the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group is "allied with various
Minuteman factions" and, according to the SPLC, the group's "‘rallying cry is: Illegals Go Home!'" While
serving in the State House, Adams was one of just fourteen members to vote against allowing undocumented children to receive
healthcare through Florida KidCare.

On the environment, Adams
supports offshore oil drilling off Florida's coast and tried
to censure the Governor for attempting to pass a constitutional
amendment to prohibit such drilling.

A
steadfast and longtime advocate of the Religious Right and anti-government
extremism, Sandy Adams plans to be a bridge between Christian conservatives and
Tea Party reactionaries in addition to a stalwart ally of Michele Bachmann in
the House.